unless you are one of these newfangled riders who didn't learn to ride with wildly oscillating eyeballsin the 80's, in which case, without at least 5" of skill compensation you will die and the badgers and welsh doggers will play with your mangled corpse

last time I was up at the Marin (2-3 years back) they had done a lot of work tidying it up. Last few sections looked like they would be good HT just need to know how to do it right. Rigid on the other hand sounds just a bit weird.

Thank you Llandegla and thank you CYB for your lovely trail centres with your cafe's, groomed trails, bike shops, bike washes and toilets for taking riders of all abilities and keeping them to yourselves.

Today I fell back in love with The Marin Trail, yes it has more fire roads than single track and yes it climbs more height on fire roads than any other trail centre and yes I got a Fat tyre pinch flat on the very last section that was quicker to push back to the car than fix it on the trail.

But for a quiet loop out in the wilds, which rides so well now that it doesn't get used like it used to, one which drains really well, with no braking bumps, one that feels so nice, with plenty of things to test you, places to jump and no other riders* & dog walkers blocking your flow it's now my favourite trail centre, If you want more single track simply do the first climb again and head down the final downhill bit a few times. Plus it's free car parking = Perfect

Give it a go if you've not been for a couple of years**

* I passed a couple on the first climb and that was all I saw.

** there are a couple of markers missing, at these points turn left and you should be OK [fingerscrossedicon]

hahahahaha cock off! ridden it on all manner of big wheel, little wheel, full sus, front sus, no sus bike related contraptions..out of all of them i enjoy it most when it's a challenge, which is flat out rigid for me, full sus flat out is just not as exciting. (in the same way that doing a circuit in a race prepared historic car on original spec rubber is much more exciting than a modern track car. you can do the same speed, but needs a hell of a lot of input and skill to get the same results and a mediocre diver will always get a better result with a modern car)

timc I'll make sure next time we ride it, one of the groups little SS strava monkeys does it with us ( i hate the whole stave thing) I'm sure we can post a nice time for you.

oh and it is a lovely old school little soul ride the marin, just one of those places that feels good to be at

90% fire road, you're having a laugh... Sure, there is a lot of fire road climbing, and even a wee bit of fire road descending, but there's also more than enough singletrack to make it worthwhile, and some of it is bloomin brilliant.

Maybe slight. But not that far off. What sticks in my head is a long fire road climb getting towards the end, after a long period without much singletrack at all, and at last getting to a singletrack descent off the side of th ehill to the right - tore into it flat out, thinking "nice one, this is mor elike it" and then getting spat out ontp the fire road again after 100 yds and back to the slog.

I think what bothered me most was the potential. That long fire road descent, with a big forest to your left that could have all sorts of fun singletrack routes through it. Loads of places where there could be loads more fun had, but for whatever reason (and I'm sure budget, planning, land ownership and all manner of similar things are contraints there) you're on the fire road.

As people have said, there's a nice day out in the countryside to be had, but if I found myself back there, I'd just ride the last descent ten times.

some awesome views from the marin, love the sections around the lake, my first trail centre too back when there wasn't much choice, found it tough when unfit with the climbing but have a long lasting fondness for it